The establishment of the MacDiarmid Institute has attracted interest from a number of other similar centres around the world and links are being forged with a number of them. Direct contact has been made with the National University of Singapore Nanoscience and Nanotechnology Initiative (NUSNNI), and it is significant that one of the co-directors […]

Alan MacDiarmid, Hideki Shirakawa and Alan Heeger will all visit Wellington in February 2003, as part of the MacDiarmid Institute’s Advanced Materials and Nanotechnology conference (AMN-1), to be held at Te Papa and at Victoria University of Wellington. This conference, which has attracted over 250 registrations from around the world, will showcase New Zealand research […]

Imagine the advantage for the Kiwis if an America’s Cup yacht could be built that was lighter yet stronger than competitors’ models thanks to revolutionary materials designed from scratch in a laboratory. The new materials might allow for a flexible mast that would be untroubled by sudden Hauraki wind shifts, for instance, or for […]

Last September, I attended the “13th International Symposium on Non-Oxide and Novel Optical Glasses” which was held in Pardubice in the Czech Republic. The conference name is quite a mouthful so it is usually abbreviated to IS(NOG)^2. The intention in the lengthy name is to distinguish the the work presented at this conference, which is […]

During a visit to the University of Alberta in June, I had the opportunity to meet with Dr Dan Wayner, the director of the new Canadian National Institute of Nanotechnology. In addition to a catchy acronym (NINT), the Institute in Edmonton has start-up funding of $146 million for the first five years. Dr Wayner […]

The Asian Institute of Nanobioscience and Technology was launched this past November, at an international symposium at the beautiful Haeundae beach in Busan, Korea. About 30 invited speakers from around the world gave presentations that liberally interpreted the ‘nanobioscience and technology’ theme. Appropriately, several talks were based on the ‘what is nanobioscience?’ theme! Ahmed […]

On Thursday 21 November 2002 the Royal Society of New Zealand presented its highest honour, the Rutherford Medal, to Professor Jeff Tallon. The Hon Pete Hodgson, Minister of Research, Science and Technology, presented the medal on the eve of an international conference at Te Papa, “Being Human: Science, Culture and Fear”. Professor Tallon is […]

Since mid 2002 the MacDiarmid Institute has successfully conducted a number of seminars via videoconference to Industrial Research Limited in Wellington and many of New Zealand’s universities. Speakers at these seminars have included members of the Institute and two speakers from the United States. The research topics discussed were: Title: Pattern Control through Surfactant […]

Ken MacKenzie has been elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand in recognition of the substantial contributions he has made to science. Ken is an Associate Professor in chemistry in the School of Chemical and Physical Sciences and Senior Scientist in the Ceramics Team at Industrial Research Ltd. He is […]

Professor Michael Kelly FRS, a New Zealand-born professor and member of the MacDiarmid Institute International Advisory Board, has been awarded the inaugural Prince Philip Professorship of Technology at the University of Cambridge. Cambridge University established the professorship in recognition of the contribution made by HRH Prince Philip as Chancellor of the University. Professor Kelly’s career […]

In November 2002, soft materials research at Victoria University of Wellington was boosted by the short-term visits of Dr Suzanne Fielding and Mrs Helena Wassenius, two talented European researchers. Suzanne, a soft condensed matter physics theorist from the University of Leeds, is a postdoctoral fellow working on non-equilibrium phase transitions and shear-banding effects. Helena, […]